Greater international cooperation is needed to prevent unsafe food from causing ill health and hampering progress towards sustainable development, world leaders said at today’s opening session of the First International Food Safety Conference, in Addis Ababa, organized by the African Union (AU), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

A
follow-up event, the International Forum on Food Safety and Trade, which will
focus on interlinkages between food safety and trade, is scheduled to be hosted
by WTO in Geneva (23-24 April). The two meetings are expected to galvanize
support and lead to actions in the key areas that are strategic for the future
of food safety.

Food
contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins or chemicals causes more
than 600 million people to fall ill and 420 000 to die worldwide every year.
Illness linked to unsafe food overloads healthcare systems and damages
economies, trade and tourism. The impact of unsafe food costs low- and
middle-income economies around $95 billion in lost productivity each year.
Because of these threats, food safety must be a paramount goal at every stage
of the food chain, from production to harvest, processing, storage,
distribution, preparation and consumption, conference participants stressed.

“The
partnership between the African Union and the United Nations has been
longstanding and strategic,” said African Union Commission chairperson Moussa
Faki Mahamat. “This food safety conference is a demonstration of this
partnership. Without safe foods, it is not possible to achieve food security,”
he said.

“There
is no food security without food safety,” agreed FAO Director-General José
Graziano da Silva during his remarks. “This conference is a great opportunity
for the international community to strengthen political commitments and engage
in key actions. Safeguarding our food is a shared responsibility. We must all
play our part. We must work together to scale up food safety in national and
international political agendas,” he said.

“Food
should be a source of nourishment and enjoyment, not a cause of disease or
death,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World
Health Organization. “Unsafe food is responsible for hundreds of thousands of
deaths every year, but has not received the political attention it deserves.
Ensuring people have access to safe food takes sustained investment in stronger
regulations, laboratories, surveillance and monitoring. In our globalized
world, food safety is everyone’s issue.”

“Food
safety is a central element of public health and will be crucial in achieving
the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals,” WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo
said. “Trade is an important force to lift people out of poverty… when we
reconvene in Geneva in April we will consider these issues in more depth,” he
added.

Around
130 countries are participating in the two-day conference, including ministers
of agriculture, health, and trade. Leading scientific experts, partner agencies
and representatives of consumers, food producers, civil society organizations
and the private sector are also taking part.

The aim
of the conference is to identify key actions that will ensure the availability
of, and access to, safe food now and in the future. This will require a
strengthened commitment at the highest political level to scale up food safety
in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.